One of the pallbearers is late. The make-believe funeral procession that talent agent Carl Mack is supposed to provide for an industrial fluids corporation convention at the Hilton New Orleans starts in about a half-hour.

Everyone else has assembled at Mack’s French Quarter costume shop. The pretend preacher is studying the eulogy, the mourning nuns are adjusting their veils and the rest of the pallbearers are milling expectantly. Maybe, Mack muses, he’ll have to fit one of the office staff with a top hat and black jacket to be a bereaved stand-in.

This is all business as usual. Mack, 53, says there’s always something to worry about before a show, yet he doesn’t seem especially worried. After 25 years producing parties, parades and musical events, Mack seems to have discovered the Zen in the business. As he puts it: “Nothing ever goes perfectly until you’re on the job.”

If you passed through Jackson Square in the 1980s, you might have spotted Mack during his days as a street performer. He was the xylophone virtuoso in the straw hat, striped jacket and bow tie, who sometimes twisted balloons into bumblebees or tap danced for extra tips.

It was a good life. Far more fun and adventuresome than the cubical-bound computer job he held for five years after college back in Rochester, N.Y., where he was born.

Party planners regularly sought out Mack for private functions. He was polite and dependable. Eventually a busy party planner suggested that Mack could augment his income by rounding up caricaturists, psychics, stilt-walkers, flame twirlers and other street performers for private gigs. Mack remembers that the job requirements were explained to him like so: “Go find them. Make sure they show up on time, looking good, smelling good, and dressed well. You’ll be sort of a middleman.”

Thus began a quarter-century career.

The tardy pallbearer finally arrives. There’s still plenty of time to load the fake coffin into the van, pile everyone into cars and drive to the hotel. During the wait, a small mystery has arisen. No one is sure why the client requested that the usual black-on-black mourning costumes be augmented with pink scarves, ribbons and other rosy details. Then someone remembers: Of course, it’s Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day.

But, as it turns out, that’s not the reason at all: The industrial fluids company’s logo is a bubble-gum-colored droplet. It’s clearly emblazoned on the horse-drawn hearse as the parade passes by on Bourbon Street heading for Washington Artillery Park. The hearse is followed by the preacher gesturing solemnly, the pallbearers dancing and the mourning nuns grieving loudly amid the marching conventioneers.

Last December, one of Mack’s productions was written up in the T-P society pages after he provided a cast of very small actors to play Snow White’s seven dwarves at a swanky debutante party. Mack said the actors wore human-hair beards and were made up to look more like the gritty dwarves from the Brothers Grimm fairy tale than the Disney version. The evil stepmother, Mack said, was encased in a giant inflated acrylic bubble that fogged up during the performance, furthering the weird Grimm vibe.

The clear plastic bubble, Mack added, was the brainchild of Chucky the Clown, a French Quarter friend from the 1980s who has gone on to become an inventor of circus props. Every now and then you have to unzip the bubble, Mack explained, so the encased actor can get some fresh air.

The bubble, ideal for pool parties, is only one of the entertainment devices Mack has at his disposal.

Back in the costume room — a crowded cavern of sparkling fabric of every imaginable hue — hangs another, the huge champagne chandelier. During special events, an acrobat is suspended from the trapeze-like contraption to dispense bubbly to partiers who pass beneath, Mack said.

Then there are the custom buffet tables with holes just big enough for actors to poke their heads or torsos through. Partiers, Mack explained, can then snack from, say, an array of desserts, arranged around living costumed centerpieces.

“Everybody’s out to try something different,” he said of the need for such exotic party hardware. “The days of a jazz band in the corner and a balloon arrangement on the table are over.”

Over the years, Mack’s talent pool has expanded far past French Quarter acquaintances. He has roughly 3,000 performers, from musicians, to models, to animal handlers, to public speakers, on his roster. Most are not street performers, he said.

With Mardi Gras just around the corner, one might assume that Mack is entering a frantic period. In fact, he said, though the costume business — the purview of Mack’s business partner Ty Johnson — is popping, Carnival is a slow season for the talent agency. After all, he explained, his most requested party performer is “the Mardi Gras reveler,” someone to cavort merrily, toss beads and otherwise provide the Crescent City Carnival experience for folks who aren’t able to be in town for the real deal.

In short, there’s not much call for costumed crazies when the streets are already full of them.

Mack’s plans for Fat Tuesday are, perhaps, predictable. He and a few cohorts will gather at the costume shop on Mardi Gras morning, adorn themselves elaborately in Johnson’s latest creations, then make their way to the Bourbon Street Awards costume contest. Look for Pinocchio; that’s Mack.

In the small amphitheater at the base of Washington Artillery Park — just across the street from Jackson Square, where Mack’s career began a quarter-century before — the purpose of the phony funeral parade becomes clear. Employees of the industrial fluids company have gathered to symbolically bid farewell to obsolete brand names and other business impediments, so they are better able to move boldly into the competitive future — or something like that.